A Test In Macro Photography

A few weeks ago I did a quick test to try out my best macro lens with a 1.5x teleconverter I had just bought. The results were good and takes me one step closer to that special level of magnification I eventually want to get to. If you don’t know much about macro photography, read this wikipedia article to get a quick overview. Eventually I’d like to have a setup were I can focus on features of small insects, such as filling a full image frame with the structure and detail of their eyes.

Here are 3 of the results:
Even with the teleconverter and limited depth of field, there is a nice amount of detail:

I really like how this turned out composition and color wise:

A larger view of the grasshopper. You can even see some damage it has in the thorax region:

Generally I put the camera into manual focus mode and completely extend the focusing tube to maximum magnification. Then I try to hold as steady as possible to frame and select what slice of image I want to be in focus. With such small objects, it’s quite difficult to stay still enough, so I think in the future I will look into getting a ball head monopod, which should help with stability yet still offer a decent amount of mobility.

With the teleconverter I’m able to gain more magnification without having to lose working distance. I’d like to eventually get bellows, extension tubes, or a 3x teleconverter to see how the 100mm Macro lens does with even more magnification. Most of the macro setups I see use a reversed lens, which I’d eventually like to try as well. What I like about the current is setup that it has a full data connection between the lens, camera, and flash meaning I can let the camera manage most or all of the settings, so I can focus on composition.

The Kenko teleconverter:

The camera in live view is another option for focusing if you can’t get your face close enough to the viewfinder:

Here is a macro of the maximum focusing distance of a metal tape measure:

The large silver thing on the right not in focus is a screw head showing how thin the depth of field is. The 1/4 stands for 1/4th of an inch, so there is quite a good deal of magnification happening.